Baltimore Orioles at Minnesota Twins

First pitch was set for 6:40 PM CT at Target Field, with Trevor Rogers going for Baltimore against a Twins team still scrambling to patch a rotation that's lost Joe Ryan, Pablo Lopez, David Festa and Mick Abel to the injured list this year. Rogers had been the best version of himself lately, striking out 9 across 6 shutout-adjacent innings in a win over the Angels his last time out, and the Orioles chose to hang onto him instead of moving him at the deadline. Kremer, dealt from Baltimore to Minnesota on August 1, was the one drawing the strange assignment: face the only organization he'd ever pitched for.

Kremer's tenure in Baltimore had already gone sideways before the trade — a quad injury and a 6.50 ERA across 7 starts pushed him out of a crowded O's rotation. The Twins needed rotation depth badly enough to take the flyer anyway, and this start was as much about steadying a beat-up staff as it was about revenge-game storylines. Minnesota came in having dropped 2 straight, and another shaky Kremer outing against the team that gave up on him would've compounded a rough week.

Instead this one flipped in a hurry. Baltimore's offense had just put up 10 runs on the Rangers to close out that series, and the early innings looked like more of the same push from the Orioles side. But Minnesota broke it open in the bottom of the 7th, turning a tight game into a laugher and making Kremer's final line look a lot better than the game he actually pitched.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
BAL	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	2	2	5	7	1
MIN	0	0	1	1	0	0	5	2	—	9	14	0

The final line was 9-5, Twins, with Minnesota out-hitting Baltimore 14-7 and doing damage in bunches rather than stringing together innings. The Orioles chipped away late with 2 in the 8th and 2 more in the 9th, but the 7th-inning outburst was too much to climb back from. Baltimore's bullpen, already without Felix Bautista and Ryan Helsley for the stretch run, couldn't hold the line once Minnesota's lineup got rolling.

Both clubs are treading water in the standings — Baltimore at 57-61, Minnesota at 58-61 — and neither is walking into September with a clean bill of health. Byron Buxton is still working his way back from a hip issue that hasn't progressed as fast as the Twins hoped, and Baltimore's infield is thinner than it wants to be with Blaze Alexander and Jordan Westburg both out. Injuries defined this series as much as anything either lineup did at the plate.

Sources